With No Evidence, AMA Votes that Obesity Is a Disease

We keep hearing that modern medicine is evidence based. So why did the AMA create the new disease of obesity by popular vote? The evidence does not show that being overweight is harmful. It does, in fact, show the opposite, that being overweight raises the age of death. But that didn’t stop the AMA.

Modern medicine prides itself on being evidence based. That, at least, is their claim. However, when it comes right down to it, the reality is entirely different. This is obvious in the American Medical Association’s (AMA’s) decision on Tuesday that obesity is now a disease. It makes no difference if an obese person is perfectly healthy. As far as they’re concerned, that person suffers from a disease.

How did they come to that decision? They voted on it![1] Their own Council on Science and Public Health reported that it’s difficult to even define obesity and, therefore, makes no sense to call it a disease.[2] Nonetheless, the AMA’s House of Delegates, which determines their policies, voted to define obesity as a disease.

So, even though they can’t even define obesity, it’s now officially a disease. An overweight person may have no health problems, but the AMA has decided that they’re fair game for treatment. You know what that means: drugs and surgery, and when that doesn’t work, more drugs and more surgery. And when they’ve made the person genuinely sick, a whole new round of drugs and surgery!